Examining Egypt's Revolution and its Future

The people who forced Hosni Mubarak from power last month face have big dreams and high hopes for change to come quickly to Egypt, yet face great challenges, a panel of experts on the Middle East said during a forum held Tuesday at the Stella B. Werner Council Office Building in Rockville.

The brainchild of Montgomery County Councilmember George L. Leventhal (D-At large) of Takoma Park and businesswoman Mimi Hassanein, the forum called "The Egyptian Revolution: What Happened?  And What Happens Next?" featured five experts who each gave a 12-minute recap of recent events from the vantage of their specialty and interests.

Sahar Aziz, an Egyptian-American lawyer and adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, focused on the constitutional challenges facing any new government. To many Egyptians “voting was a joke so they never found out about it,” she said. Therefore, most people are not registered to vote, nor do they know how to register. Because of this, there may not be enough time to educate all interested citizens to register to vote in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential  elections, which are tentatively planned for this summer.

Mohamed Elmenshawy, director of languages and the regional studies program at the Washington, DC-based Middle East Institute, addressed whether, fresh off a revolution, the high expectations of the Egyptian people could be met. “The people in the street have great expectations of what should be happening,” he said. “They want it to happen quickly.” Standing in the way is the entrenched corruption in the business and political sectors, he said.

Hassanein owns child care centers in Montgomery and Frederick counties and also maintains a home in Cairo where she recently hosted County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) and his wife Catherine. She spoke of her experiences in the United States and of the opportunities available to the young and the old in this diverse county.

She called what occurred in Egypt "a war without bloodshed."

It was “a revolution by the people, done by the people," she said.

"I’m a believer of a dream. The Egyptian people dream[ed] of this a long time. It’s 40 years. It’s a long time. I’m optimistic about it and hopefully it will be a beautiful model for the world.”

Foudan Salem, president of the Washington, DC-based Egyptian American Cultural Association and a geography professor at George Mason University, shared the change in her thinking that occurred over the 18 days of revolt. She said that she admired Mubarak a lot until recent months and felt that he’d done a lot for Egypt.

She’d never imagined that he was stealing. It wasn’t until the extent of the corruption became clear that she understood, she said.

She feared that without Mubarak in power the economy would collapse and things would be worse, she said. But that has not happened and she is proud of the youth and their unity.

“Actually it was after this revolution I saw this unity," she said. "All the people have this dream like Madame Mimi said, they have a dream and they make it come true and they insist. They stayed in the street every day. They didn’t retreat.”

Diane Singerman, a professor of government at American University, concluded the forum with an analysis of  why the revolution succeeded. It was due to a combination of the mounting indignities of corruption, the abuse of power, and the fact that the youth of Egypt faced the highest unemployment and underemployment in the world with no hope for change under the old system, she said. Young people were stuck in “waithood,” she said, waiting for a job, waiting to have enough stability and money to marry, waiting for their lives to begin. 

“Youth has everything to gain by this rebellion,” she said.